This article provides a list of College of Wooster fraternities and sororities. Greek letter organizations have had a long history at the College of Wooster, dating to 1871, five years after the founding of the school. These emerged as chapters of national fraternities until their ban in 1913, at which time they adjusted into local chapters, sometimes called "sections" or "clubs" which were Greek in all but name. At times they have included the majority of the student body, while at present, social chapters represent about fifteen percent of students, with many additional students being admitted to various honor societies.
Social, professional, and honor societies are listed below, after a short historical summary.
Formation
The pioneer chapters of the national fraternities were established at what was then called the University of Wooster, now the College of Wooster in 1871 and 1872, only five years after the establishment of the school. Formed originally as dining groups that shared the cost and responsibility of meals, beginning in 1870 they began to coalesce into a system of nearly a dozen fraternities and sororities by the turn of the century. As an example of the age of the Wooster Greek system, national fraternity Sigma Chi had placed its Beta chapter at the College of Wooster.This was the 30th chapter formed by Sigma Chi, which in its earliest years did not follow a strict alphabetization system. It would go on to install over 300 additional chapters, after Wooster.
Fraternal connections were not limited to just undergraduates: Early professors and administrators deemed their undergraduate fraternity membership(s) significant enough to list in their short biographies in the annual Wooster Index yearbooks. In the 1897 yearbook, fully half of the professors and instructors listed their affiliation, including Dr. Sylvester F. Scovel, third president of the college, and a member of Beta Theta Pi, College Vice President Dr. Samuel J Kirkwood, also a member of Beta Theta Pi, and Mrs. Minne Carrothers McDonald, a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Of 21 faculty members with biographies, thirteen were listed with Greek affiliation. During this era, sponsorship by prominent local alumni or professors was a common spark to the establishment of new undergraduate chapters.See the 1897 Wooster Index yearbook, pages 25-31 for examples, picking just one out of many yearbooks that show professorial Greek membership. Accessed 5 Jan 2021. Other yearbook pages, naming members of each chapter would list these separately, sometimes under Latin headings as either "Fraters in Facultate" (Faculty) or "Fraters in Urbe" (Town) for local alumni. In the 1897 yearbook Kappa Kappa Gamma alone listed fifteen alumnae in the local Wooster area. "Fraters in Universitate" (Undergraduates) were listed by class year.
Similar expansion of fraternal groups was sweeping through other Ohio institutions, as old-line Eastern fraternities gazed westward. But about the time Wooster was established a juncture had been reached where a burst of anti-secret society fervorCausal to this may have been Freemasonry's disturbing Morgan Affair, prior to which that fraternity had enjoyed broad support across America due to unanimous respect for President George Washington, who famously supported the Craft. European observer De Tocqueville wrote glowingly about Washington and the Founders' embrace of such civic and fraternal groups, which he observed added vastly to America's social fabric and built what we today term "Social capital." had trimmed somewhat what until then had been full-throated support of such civic groups at both the adultFor example, earlier, an Anti-Masonic political party had formed, which by 1870 impacted a generation of civic leaders then in ascendancy. and collegiate level.For example, one national fraternity, Delta Upsilon (ΔΥ) had actually been organized on a fully anti-secret basis. By 1876 ΔΥ reformed this model to reflect a more moderate "non-secret" stance. In this era, all fraternities were affected by increased scrutiny. Thus, this was the backdrop philosophical tussle when the college was established.
Following the trend at other institutions, and with administrative approval, several of the fraternities at Wooster had bought property and embarked on building their first houses within a decade of formation.
Fraternities were engaged in campus improvement. They aided in the construction of the school's tennis courts in 1888, and in 1890 "contributed in a small way to the construction of wings on Old Main."Noted in the 1950 Index yearbook, p.64-75, accessed 6 Jan 2021. A crisis for the Wooster Greeks occurred in 1893, where a "large proportion" of the student body left the school, never to return, over a fractious conflict where the faculty wished to deemphasize athletics. This led to the closure of four fraternities due to low manpower. Three of these chapters were re-established within a few years. As early as 1899 faculty and administration began to object to fraternities as "excuses for smoking, drinking, and dancing." Some objection in those early days came on the complaint of non-aligned students, a majority of the campus, who felt they could not get elected to any campus office without belonging to a strong fraternity.
What became an upperclassman dorm, Kenarden Lodge, was built in 1911.Kenarden was built in 1911, according to the City's historic district plan. accessed 4 Jan 2021 Its gabled "Sections" would become, by 1918, the perennial homes of many of the school's Greek chapters.
1913 ban A larger, existential crisis for the Wooster Greeks ensued when, in the fall of 1912, the Trustees were lobbied to close its then 40-year old Greek system.
L. H. Severance, then-President of the Board of Trustees and namesake of academic building Severance Hall, was considered to be "an important donor" during his tenure. He was approached to support a building campaign, but rebuffed the attempt. Severance was virulently anti-Greek, and asserted he "would give no more to Wooster while fraternities remained because he was convinced that they [were] inimical to the best interests of the college." The Trustees at the time, on a narrow, contested vote, elected to disband the fraternities as of ; three of the trustees resigned to express their disapproval over the decision. News spread quickly among the chapters that no further initiations were to be allowed from that point. Two sororities organized an overnight ceremony prior to "officially" hearing the news the following morning. One fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, noted a year later in an edition of The Palm, "[...But,] shortly after the passage of the resolution abolishing fraternities Mr. Severance died. He left no will and had not entered into any legal obligation binding upon his heirs or estate."—Thus in spite of the closure of all campus Greek chapters, no donation from Severance for Wooster's capital campaign was ever received. Some hoped that "the odious ruling" would be rescinded, but that did not occur. The discouraged national chapters devolved into local organizations or disbanded, with the last few national Greek members graduating in 1918.Noted in Historian Fran Becque's Greek historical writings, posted 13 Feb, 2013 on the centennial of 1913 ban, accessed 27 Dec 2020.Baird's Manual, 20th ed. states the situation more plainly: "The trustees of Wooster were seduced by an offer of a large endowment, on condition that fraternities be banished. But Wooster did not get the money it expected, which was humiliating for the trustees; and the sympathetic interest of loyal alumni was estranged, which was unfortunate for the college." (p.I-22)
Response to the ban College yearbooks, called the Wooster Index, now available online, printed multiple pages for each Greek organization from the 1870s through 1914. In the 1915 yearbook these pages abruptly disappeared, with that same edition eulogizing Severance. By 1916 and '17 the only mention of Greeks in the yearbooks were graduating seniors who listed their affiliation. It would be decades before Greek affiliations were once again noted in these books, although many of the now-local chapters survived through this period, continuing to function as fraternities and sororities of sorts, only without letters. Upon moving into Kenarden Lodge in 1918, the groups began to call themselves by numbers, usually in Roman numeral fashion. Soon these groups took on new Greek letters as well. As each fraternity lived in a section of Kenarden, the groups adopted this terminology and began to call themselves Sections. The sororities opted to call themselves Clubs. Thus the transition into local chapters was not immediate, but there was legacy continuity:
National fraternities → Numbered groups → Numbered "Sections" at Kenarden → Adoption of Greek letters, as locals → Expansion beyond Kenarden
At the same time the General, or Social chapters were adjusting to their new names, a number of Honor societies began to appear on campus, the earliest of these tapping their first members in the 1920s.
By the 1940s, each of Kenarden's 7 men's sections had a perennial group of its own, and there were at least 9 sections on campus by the 1950s, as well as several clubs. To cope with this expansion, which according to the Wooster Voice included 99% of men on campus from 1953 to 1957, the college built three new dorms, Armington Hall, which housed sections I-III, Stevenson Hall, which housed sections IV-V, and Bissman Hall, which housed sections VI-VIII. The traditional Section names stuck with each group regardless of their residence. Yearbooks remain the best source to trace whether specific local chapters are the direct descendants of these original national chapters.